


Figuring it out

by Lieju



Series: Distractions [3]
Category: Gaston (Bande Dessinée)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:01:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8012995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lieju/pseuds/Lieju
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, they were now in a relationship, Prunelle supposed. It was just too bad he had no idea how any of it would actually work in practice, or how to continue from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Figuring it out

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a name for Lebrac's unnamed girlfriend, and since some people have decided to use the name 'Aimée' for her already, I went with that.

 

”Lagaffe.”

The smile on Gaston's face made Prunelle's heart skip a beat.

The office boy was blushing and before Prunelle knew it, he was caught in a hug.

So much for Prunelle's attempt to start the day in a professional manner.

Prunelle gave a small peck on his cheek and did his best to wiggle out of the hug. ”Gaston, I have work to do. As do _you._ ”

The younger man let go. ”Oh.”

”So, I came by to bring today's mail.” He pushed the small bundle at Gaston. ”Here.”

”Ah, thanks.”

Prunelle wasn't really sure why Gaston was blushing again and giving him an embarassed smile like he had just given him something much more romantic than mail that would presumably soon be forgotten somewhere for weeks.

And now he was feeling like he should have done something like that.

Some kind of a _romantic_ gesture...

He settled to giving him a smile and a pat on his shoulder.

”I have work to do, Gaston.”

* * *

 

Fortunately the work today wasn't particularly hectic, so the editor had plenty of time to let his thoughts wander.

He wasn't really sure what kind of things he should do now.

He did sort of want to do something special for Gaston, but on the other hand it felt like a bad and awkward idea. Besides, he wasn't really a romantic person.

Then again, he hadn't had many opportunities for doing those kind of things, and hadn't paid much mind for that sort of stuff.

His main experience from dating had been the relationship he had had in university with a girl a year junior to him, and that had been, looking back to it, more of a friendship than anything.

He sighed, letting his eyes wander.

Well, there was Lebrac. He had had a pretty successfull work-place romance with Aimée, one of the secretaries. Which Prunelle hadn't had any issue with, since it didn't interfere with their work.

It had been so seemingly easy for the artist too, the editor couldn't help feeling jealous.

It hadn't been, from what Prunelle had seen in the office anyway, any courtship filled with grandiose gestures. Rather, two people had simply been seemingly naturally drawn to one another, and the relationship had just fallen into place.

Then again, maybe he had just seen part of it, so that's how it had seemed. Maybe it had been difficult for them as well?

Then Prunelle suddenly remembered he had started this thing not only with another man, but with _Gaston Lagaffe_ of all people, so no, it probably hadn't been as confusing and difficult for them.

”Prunelle.”

”Hm?” He realized he had been staring at Lebrac.

”What do you think?” The artist pointed at the painting he was working on.

”It's nice. I like the colour scheme.”

”You seemed like you were deep in thought.”

”Sort of. I was just thinking.” Prunelle reached for his pipe, mostly to have something for his hands to do.

”About your crush?”

”What!?” Prunelle almost snapped his pipe in half in shock.

”The girl you told me about. The one with the annoying dog. You were just looking sort of...”

Prunelle quickly evaluated the pros and cons of keeping that charade up with Lebrac. On the other hand, he could have talked about all this stuff (or some of it at least) with him then, but on the other hand, it was risky, since the chances were Lebrac would have noticed him acting that way towards Gaston.

”I was just thinking,” He lighted his pipe to avoid looking Lebrac in the eye. ”Besides, that probably won’t go anywhere. She already has a boyfriend.”

Lebrac was too close to both him and Gaston. But he _could_ talk about this with someone in that manner, pretending it was a woman he was talking about.

Of course he then realized he really didn't know many people well enough to talk about his love life with them.

For a moment he was seriously considering mentioning it to his mother, but that would have either given her false hope or a heart-attack, and he wasn't looking for either.

And he'd rather not spread any rumours on the workplace about him having a girlfriend, considering the chances where it would reach Gaston's ears, and he might take it seriously...

Prunelle was starting to realize how troublesome it was having 90% of your social life taking place in the same environment.

He had known this was a bad idea.

And yet, due to the odd elated feeling, he couldn't really totally regret it all either, which in some ways made it worse.

Prunelle closed his eyes.

He was just going to ignore Gaston for the time being, and focus on the letter he was typing.

Right.

He opened his eyes, and started.

His plan of not paying Gaston any mind worked for all of twenty seconds.

Then he hit the 'S' key.

”-of course the chances are it is in fact the more common Great Spotted Woodpecker, if the caller could have given us a better description of its back we could tell her more, but of course the White-backed Woodpecker can be reliably identified only by-”

That was coming from his typewriter.

He pressed the 'S' key again, and the voice stopped.

Another press.

”-and our next caller has a question about a bracket fungi he found that apparently looks like Leonid Brežnev-”

Some experimentation revealed that the 'W' key tuned into the 'classical channel', and that the 'L' key made a sound like a blowhorn.

* * *

 

Prunelle stormed into the mail room. ”Gaston!”

”Oh, hey Prunelle.”

Prunelle ignored his smile. ”What have you done to my typewriter!?”

”Oh, you noticed.”

”Rogntudjuu Gaston, do you think I can type anything like that?”

”I just cleaned it.”

”It plays music, you ngh-” 'You _idiot_ ', he was about to say, but swallowed the last part just in time.

Understanding dawned on Gaston. ”Oh, so that's where those parts from my uncle's radio went.” He smiled. ”But isn't it just better for it?”

”No!”

Prunelle would have said more, but before he could think of pejoratives that would be now appropriate, he found himself in a kiss.

No, he wasn't!

Prunelle didn't know which was more annoying, that Gaston was trying to get out of this by kissing him, or that it was working.

He could feel his anger quickly diminishing.

Which was nice in a way, but he needed that to do his job, rogntudjuu!

Also he wasn't doing the sensible thing and pulling out of the kiss... Or, you know, not kissing back in the first place.

Yes, he should do that, despite the hesitation at the back of his mind.

He broke the contact and made a conscious attempt to sound less angry and more reasonable. “Gaston, you can't do that.”

“I just did.” He noted, extremely unhelpfully.

”No, no.” Prunelle closed the door, relieved that no-one (apart from the seagull that he was pretty sure was _staring)_ had seen it.

”You agreed, our working relationship was to stay the same. And it didn't involve any of that stuff before.”

”But why not? Prunelle, what harm is there, relaxing every once in a while? No one saw.”

”No, Gaston. Listen, we will take things slowly. And figure things out.”

”Phuh.”

”I'm going to take that as an agreement.”

Prunelle definitely did not flee the uncomfortable situation, he merely walked briskly away to continue his work.

With his singing typewriter.

Well, at least it tuned to the classical-channel...

* * *

 

Gaston watched Prunelle leave. He couldn't quite place the feeling in his chest...

Sighing, he closed his eyes and retreated to daydreams.

Hm, maybe he and Prunelle would be on an adventure together? Like that space-adventure-serial he had read just yesterday?

They'd land on an unknown planet, filled with alien creatures and lakes made of hydrogen and trees carrying diamonds the size of apples.

And Prunelle would complain that he wasn't writing enough space-articles and that Gaston should be sorting through the space-mail, but their communication-satellite would be eaten by a space-jellyfish, and they'd be stranded on the alien planet with no way to do paperwork, and then they'd be attacked by a rock-monster that would try to eat Prunelle...

But Gaston would, with a well-placed shot from his slingshot, make the monster crumble, saving Prunelle.

Who would panic and stress over their situation. 'We are stranded!' he'd despair.

'No worries!', Gaston would tell him.'We have the limitless possibilities of an unknown planet before us!' And he'd show Prunelle how they could build a house from the remains of their rocket and grow food, and Prunelle would be so impressed and relieved he'd hug him, and kiss him, and tell him he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with him...

And then they'd kiss again...

Gaston opened his eyes.

That was a nice daydream and all, but it felt sort of pointless and unsatisfying, now that he could just do that in real life. Well, the hugging and kissing part at least. Even if he could move to an alien planet, he wouldn't really want to, at least not without his pets, and it was nice going to movies every now and then, and visit his aunt...

But even those hugs and kisses were sort of an issue.

They had already done that, so why not do more of it?

And it wasn't like Prunelle was opposed to the idea itself either, he was just being overly uptight.

Gaston entertained the idea of just not caring and surprising Prunelle with kisses publicly (once everyone knew, he'd have no reason NOT to kiss him a lot more, right?), but something about that idea made him hesitate.

Just the idea of Prunelle made his stomach feel weird (pleasantly so, though) but when it came to all of that kind of stuff, he was a bit nervous he'd do something wrong. Which was a new and foreign feeling. Figuring Prunelle out had suddenly become much more complicated.

He'd need to think of things they could do now that they were dating.

They were dating, right? He wasn't sure they had actually agreed to it, but kissing?

Yeah, they were totally dating.

He grinned.

He wanted to run around telling everyone, engrave their initials on trees (that was actually probably doable), brag to Jules how the waitress he had brought to that one party wasn't as cute as his Prunelle...

He sighed.

Was dating always this complicated, or was it just Prunelle?

He caught movement on the floor and smiled. At least there was always someone he could talk to.

”Cheese. Come here.” He lifted the mouse on the table and watched it feast on the piece of its namesake. ”Did you see the sweater he was wearing? It was the brown one. I never noticed before, but I think it's more fluffy than most of the things he wears.”

The mouse wiggled his whiskers in what Gaston took as an agreement.

”What should I do, Cheese? It must be easy, being a mouse. Well, I guess you are hunted by pretty much everything, and live like three years. But at least your love-life is easy. If Prunelle and I were mice we'd be well into raising our first litter by now.”

Cheese picked up the remaining food and scampered off to his nest with it.

”Phuh, you don't want to listen to me either? I didn't even start with my opinions on his hair...”

* * *

 

Prunelle walked out of his office, almost colliding with Gaston who had been obviously waiting for him in the hallway. ”You're leaving?”

”Yes,” Prunelle said.

“I can give you a lift home,” Gaston suggested.

Prunelle supposed that was fine. After all, that was something Gaston had been in habit of doing even before this whole thing. So refusing him would actually be more suspicious.

So he nodded.

The sight of the so-called car made him hesitate again. “So, how is it going to malfunction today? Will it catch fire? Maybe the carburetor will dissolve? Or we'll find sparrows are nesting in the motor?”

“You are exaggerating.”

“All of those things have actually happened,” Prunelle pointed out.

“Which will only make them less likely to happen again.”

However, worry over the vehicle and the numerous ways it could malfunction felt familiar and in some way comforting.

But when he was sitting in the car and they were making their way towards his apartment safely (albeit slowly), the new kind of nervousness was lifting it's head again.

What would they talk about?

Rogntudjuu, what if Gaston would expect to be invited in?

“So, Gaston, what have you been doing lately? Any new inventions?” It couldn't hurt trying to use this opportunity to find out what sort of catastrophes he could expect.

“No. Well, I think my seagull has been a bit depressed lately, so I tried building a machine that would cheer her up. Long story short, there are still some kinks to work out, so if you happen to find an octopus somewhere in the office, that's mine.”

“Ah.” He felt the need to ask “A dead one? Or are you keeping live octopuses now too?”

“Obviously it was dead. By the way, the plural is 'octopi'.”

“Both are acceptable,” Prunelle told him.

Gaston gave him a skeptical look. “Really?”

“Gaston, eyes on the road!” Prunelle lurched sideways as the car swerved to avoid colliding with a parking meter. “And yes, trust me, knowing those kinds of things is a part of my job.”

“Oh.” Gaston seemed to process this new information. “I guess you _would_ know all that kind of stuff.”

“Yes, Gaston, my job consists of more than keeping an eye on you and yelling at people. Believe it or not.”

“Okay.” Gaston said. “I promised to go help Jules to paint his flat this weekend.”

“You do things like that?” Prunelle was a bit surprised he'd volunteer to do work, but he did make (usually disastrous) attempts of being helpful every now and then even at the office.

“Yup, I do stuff like that a lot. Do you wanna come? It's not just me and Jules, Bertrand and some other of my friends are coming to help too, and we're going to eat afterwards. So, you could come with.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Oh. Of course, that's not really... Prunelle, how about if you and I would go and do something else, then?”

“Umh...”

“Like, a picnic? We could do that, right?”

“It's February.” Prunelle reminded him. “Maybe later.”

”Oh.”

An awkward silence fell and lasted until the car stopped in front of Prunelle's apartment building.

“And we're here!” Gaston turned towards Prunelle. “See? You worried over nothing.”

“Yes, this time.”

Prunelle had a slight fear Gaston might try to kiss him goodbye, so he opened the door to leave. “Thanks for the ride.”

“I'll come and get you in the morning. Right?”

Prunelle nodded. “Sure. But if you're late, I'll be walking.”

  
  


* * *

 

To the editor's surprise, Gaston was actually early next morning, and was already waiting for him in front of his apartment building when he stepped out.

“Hi.” Gaston opened the passenger door for him, another action he had done countless times before but that now seemed to carry all these new meanings.

Prunelle nodded. “Morning.” He sat on the passenger's seat. “Thanks.”

Thanking him for holding the door for him wasn't, however, something he had usually done. But it felt appropriate now.

“And it was nice of you to be early.” No harm in giving him credit where it was due.

“I left home half past five. Just in case the car broke down.”

“And did it?”

“Yeah. A bit.” He yawned.

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Some. But it's okay, I'll just sleep at work.”

Well, small steps, Prunelle supposed.

  
  


* * *

 

  
  


Prunelle entered his home after once again saying his goodbyes to Gaston.

They had fallen into a routine where Gaston would come to pick him up in the morning, and then drive him back home after work.

But it wasn't really a _comfortable_ routine, even ignoring the fact that often he would have made the journey faster by walking. At least at work Prunelle could always escape any awkward situation by telling Gaston he was busy with work. In the small car he felt trapped, and while it wasn't really completely uncomfortable, he didn't know how to deal with it.

He had to seriously think.

So far this whole thing hadn't been any kind of catastrophe. But it was likely Gaston hadn't thought of it through. He probably didn't understand what he had gotten into.

That this couldn't really be a proper relationship, that he couldn't have most of those things with Prunelle that he could have had with Miss Jeanne or some other woman.

At least Prunelle didn't want any of those things, not really. Getting married and having children and living together with someone weren't things he needed from life. Which was good because he was increasingly certain that even without this thing with Gaston he couldn't have ever fallen for a woman.

But Gaston... Maybe he was just confused.

Did Prunelle regret getting into this, well, he supposed it _was_ a relationship?

No, he couldn't honestly say that. Which was probably selfish, but Gaston was more than okay with it.

But how would it go from there? How would he make it work?

They had spent time together outside of work before. So why now he felt so awkward? He had enjoyed the times Gaston had dragged him to the beach or for a walk in a forest, even if he hadn't at the time completely realized why.

And even if he had thought it was a bit odd at the time, now he would just be anxious if someone would notice and start to suspect things.

He really hadn't thought this through, had he?

Had he really thought that things would just somehow return to normal between them?

Although this was better than how he had been feeling weeks before, and against his better judgment he wanted to make this work.

He thought of his options.

  
  


* * *

 

Lebrac popped his head into the office: “I'm off.” He nodded towards Prunelle. “Working late?”

Prunelle shook his head. “Just finishing here. Although it's a bit later than I thought. Has everyone else already gone home?”

The artist nodded. “Yup. Except Gaston.”

“I'll wake him up when I leave.”

Prunelle watched Lebrac leave. In truth he had finished the day's work some time ago and was now just going through things for the second or third time. Well, being thorough never hurt.

But now he finished quickly.

“Gaston?”

He was sleeping, predictably, hunched over his desk.

And looking very peaceful.

The thought of waking him up with a kiss crossed Prunelle's mind, but he quickly abandoned the idea.

Gaston probably wouldn't mind, but he didn't feel comfortable doing something like that without warning.

Still, something slightly more intimate than usual felt only appropriate.

So he slightly bent over so he was face to face with the sleeping man and gently nudged his shoulder.

“Gaston.”

“Mmm...”

“Time to wake up.”

Brown eyes fluttered open. “Now?”

Now that he was awake, Prunelle planted a soft kiss on his cheek, and the suddenly completely awake Gaston did his best to return it.

However, the position was uncomfortable for Prunelle, so he pulled away, standing up.

And he had something else in mind. “Come with me, Gaston.”

He led the younger man to the conference room, locking the door after them. Not that anyone should come around the office at this hour. Still, better safe than sorry.

“Well, I thought that since the working hours are over and no-one would be here...” He gestured towards the sofa. “And it would be more comfortable here...”

Prunelle wondered if he should mention he was only suggesting kissing and hugging, but decided against it, just to avoid revealing he _had_ been thinking about things going further than that...

Not that he had any intention of trying to actually do any of that, he was more than content with the kinds of things they had already been doing, and would just return to those kinds of thoughts during lonely nights in his apartment.

No need to let Gaston know anything about _that,_ though. That might either scare him away or give him ideas.

He tentatively kissed Gaston.

“Prunelle...Your breath smells minty.”

“I brushed my teeth. So?” He wasn't about to stop smoking any time soon, but he figured the least he could do was to make it less uncomfortable for Gaston.

“Oh. Okay. Should I brush mine too?”

Prunelle couldn't help a smile. “You're fine.” The mix of eagerness and uncertainty wasn't something he saw often in the younger man, and he found it cute.

He gently pushed Gaston towards the sofa, deciding to take the lead, just in case.

It probably didn't hurt at least pretending like he knew what he was doing.

He had thought of this, planning what to do beforehand.

In the scenarios he had ran through his mind Gaston had tended to end up under him, but he decided trying to actually get him in that position was completely out of the question. Too aggressive, Gaston might not have liked it, and it was probably fairly uncomfortable too.

So he settled to sitting next to him on the sofa, and pulling him to a hug.

Seeing what the younger man was planning to do, he told him “If you're planning to lift your feet on the sofa, take your shoes off first.”

The espadrilles were kicked to the corner, so that Gaston could more comfortably sit face-to-face with the editor. This time he initiated the kiss, pushing against Prunelle.

Who had no issue kissing back, but didn't know what to do with his hands, and thinking it probably wasn't too sexual, he settled into burying his fingers into Gaston's hair. It was coarse, but clean, and he found himself enjoying the feel quite a lot.

Gaston responded by doing the same, slightly pulling at Prunelle's hair, which he found he _didn't_ enjoy. He wasn't sure if Gaston had taken what he had done as a suggestion, or if he hadn't liked it either, and was mirroring his actions to show how uncomfortable it was.

He decided to let go, just in case. He wondered briefly whether he should mention anything, but it wasn't like it actually hurt, and it would probably spoil the mood or something. And it seemed Gaston was trying to find new things for his hands to do, and had moved to cupping the editor's face and gently stroking his beard, which Prunelle found weird, but sort of nice.

Prunelle closed his eyes, in the hopes it would make it feel less awkward.

He made an attempt of imagining it was someone else he was kissing. What if it was a woman? He didn't even feel any surprise anymore at the fact that the idea seemed far less appealing than the reality.

”Gaston...” He mumbled into the kiss.

Gaston pulled back. ”Mmhuh?”

”Nothing, I just felt like saying it out loud.”

Prunelle kissed him again, and not just to avoid any further questions.

He had to admit to himself that there was no one in the world he would have rather been kissing.

And he was surprisingly fine with that.

 


End file.
